The Missing Night
by skylarkblue
Summary: One morning eighteen-year-old Addi wakes up with a missing memory. Determined to hunt down the events of her missing night, she runs into an old friend by accident - the Doctor.
1. Prologue

"Oh, Addison Morgan, you brilliant girl. I'm so sorry. So very sorry."

"Doctor - Doctor, no. Please. There has to...please. I want to stay. Don't make me go back, Doctor." She managed to choke the words out through her tears as she backed away from the man before her, the man she trusted, hands up as if to ward him off. She stumbled backwards until she hit the wall of the TARDIS, still shaking her head frantically. Her legs gave way beneath her and she crumpled to the floor. As he moved closer he could hear her whispering the word _no_ over and over, gradually growing louder until she was hysterically screaming it at him. She beat her hands against the wall, sobbing, and tried to backpedal when she saw him coming.

"Addison," his voice dropped to a whisper and he blinked furiously to keep the tears from his eyes. "It's time to go."

He reached out and placed his fingers to her forehead, pulling her close as she surrendered, a crying mess in his arms. He didn't bother trying to comfort her, just closed his eyes and focused, and when he felt her sag against him weakly he knew it was done. He stroked her dark curls fondly for just a moment, the last time he'd do so, with a murmur of _I'm sorry, I'm so sorry_. Letting her slip unconscious from his arms, he moved over to the console and set the date. June 3, 2013. The night this all began.

He turned his head to stare at the still form curled up on the console room floor, and thought of Donna, and Amy. No, it wasn't the night this all began. It was the night he'd ruined another girl's life.


	2. Memory Loss

I woke up one morning with a splitting headache and no idea where I was. It took me a full three minutes to work out I was in my own bedroom. All I could clearly remember of the night before was a noise, a strange noise that haunts my dreams to this day. Don't get me wrong; it haunted my waking hours as well. Sometimes I'd think I could hear it clear as day and rush around the corner…but nothing would ever be there. And I would stand there in the street until the wind chilled me and the sky went dark, until the streetlights came on, I'd stand there with a ghost of the noise running through my head and the strongest feeling I had just missed it.

The morning I woke up with no memory was the fourth of June and it was bloody freezing. I was cold, I had a headache, and I was inexplicably wearing my old grey jacket. There was a healing cut on my hand and a bruise the size of an egg on my knee, and I had no idea how either got there. As far as I could remember (which wasn't much at all) I hadn't drunk anything the previous night – in fact I'd settled in early with a blanket and my favourite book.

Wrapped in that blanket, I'd walked over to stare out the window at the rainy street outside. The headache had only worsened when I stood, and as I watched the puddles form on the path I realised how much pain I was in. I ached all over, with a muddle of bruises on my body I hadn't noticed. I dismissed it and my missing memories, and walked out to the kitchen to make myself breakfast. Life went on as normal, but I couldn't help but notice the tiny details that had changed. A scar I didn't remember receiving. My hair seemed just a bit longer, not really noticeable, but unsettling.

After that night – I took to calling it the missing night – I began having vivid dreams. Dreams about an odd man and a fabulous blue box, about unimaginable creatures, dangerous women, weapons nobody would believe. The dreams always changed but there was a constant – the haunting noise and the strange blue box. I ignored these dreams best I could and went on with my life, difficult as it was. The dream life was infinitely better than the reality of living in lower-class Bristol. So I ignored it best I could, until another night nearly a year later when I heard the noise again.

By this point, I was used to the noise humming quietly at the back of my thoughts, occasionally surfacing unexpectedly. But this was different, I was out with friends, walking the streets and larking about. And the noise was there louder than ever. I got this sudden feeling it was close, the blue box was close, and if I didn't find it I'd never know what the meaning of it all was. I'd never understand the dreams of far-off worlds or the mysterious woman, the blue box or the man. I abandoned my friends and ran down the street, towards the noise. I _had_ to find it. I had to know what it was. I was desperate to know. What had happened on the missing night? And I knew the only way to find out would be to find that noise.

At that moment my memory gets hazy again, because something struck my head and I fell in the street, confused and bleeding. The noise stopped and I dragged myself forward, ignoring the blood dripping into my eyes. I knew I was closer than I'd ever been to the blue box, to the life I lived in my dreams. Before I lost consciousness the last thing I clearly remembered was a man leaning over my body and asking, in a confused way, "Addi Morgan? Is that you?"


	3. Concussed

"You were so very clever, you know. Hated yourself - absolutely despised yourself, some days - but you were so clever. I never understood how someone so brilliant could hate themselves so much. You used to tell me you were nothing, told me that you failed all your exams, dropped out of school. Like that made any difference to who you were. Oh, Addi, if only you could remember."

The voice turned sharp. "But you can't. Doing that, taking your memory, that was the closest I could give you to having your normal life back. I should have never taken you to begin with. It seemed so funny at the time - there I was, battling a Bexliz invasion with no idea what I'm doing, and all of a sudden there's this skinny girl pushing me down and telling me to be careful. So brave of you, I mean, you could have died, but you saw what was happening outside and rushed to help. It was just brilliant."

A bitter laugh followed by a sigh. I could hear movement, but I didn't dare open my eyes.

"And then...after we stopped them...I invited you along. One trip, I told myself. Just one trip. But I said that about Martha Jones too, and she ended up a soldier. Amelia Pond, Martha Jones, Donna Noble...you, Addi Morgan. I remember you all."

I've been kidnapped by a madman, I thought desperately. I've been kidnapped by a serial killing madman and I'm going to die. I wondered if I should struggle, scream for help, before deciding there would be no point. The madman already had me. I guessed now I should just wait.

"Getting to know you was difficult though. So quiet, you were. Just wanted to stare at the stars. I don't blame you. They're beautiful, the stars. No matter the galaxy. And you just liked to sit there and watch them. But when we talked, you were so...sad. I didn't want you to be sad, Addison. So that one trip became two, then three. Next thing I know you've got your own key. Still don't know why I did that. I said, no more copies of the key...anyway, I'm rambling on. You probably won't remember this by morning, the amount you drank, not to mention the bump on the head. It's for the best." His voice became soft, almost wistful, and he repeated himself. "It's for the best."

I realised I was in a bed. A relatively soft bed, not unlike the one I had at home. The blanket felt wrong though, sort of scratchy, the kind of blanket that lurks in the back of the cupboard and only gets taken out in those freezing winters where there's no other choice. I squirmed for a moment, disliking the itch against my skin. There were footsteps and I froze, breathing slowly, eyes still shut. I felt something touch my hair - a hand. The madman was touching my head.

"Goodbye, Addison Morgan."

My eyes snapped open, but the room was empty. My room. I was back at home, in my room, on my own bed with the unfortunate scratchy blanket. I threw the blanket off and scrambled out of bed, rushing to the window, but there was nothing on the street outside. Nothing. Nothing but silent cars and flickering streetlights. My fingers reached up and ran over my forehead. The cut was still there, sticky but dry. It had been cleaned. I turned my gaze to my reflection in the clear glass. I was dazed, probably concussed. I imagined the madman. But imaginary men don't clean cuts and dump you in bed with the worst blanket.

It had been him. The madman was him. The dream man. He'd been in my room, talking nonsense. And I was more determined than ever to find him, because he was there, in Bristol. And he could vanish at any second.

I vowed to myself that tomorrow morning, I was going to find that blue box.

Find the box, find the man.


	4. Hunting the Blue Box

"You're mad, you are."

"Oi," I snapped. "Shut it. I'm not mad." She gave me a disbelieving look. "Tully! I'm not mad. I'm not. I just - look, can you just help me here?"

"You're asking me to help you find a blue box in Bristol. No other details, just 'find me the blue box'. Addi, that sounds so insane. Not to mention your, you know, oddness after that whole affair last year. The missing night? Remember?" She twisted an elastic around her sleek black hair, eyebrows still raised in an almost mocking expression. Tully Costello had been my best friend for the past six years; the first day of school had not been a pleasant experience for either of us. But we'd stuck together and somehow made it work, her the insufferable genius and me nothing more than the idiot sidekick.

"No, Tully, I don't remember! That's the point, I don't remember. I need the blue box. I'll remember if you can get me the blue box. Please," I pleaded, clasping my hands dramatically and pouting. "For me, genius girl?"

"I'm not a genius. Stop saying that, you know it isn't true, and what's more you can't keep saying all this rubbish about...fine. I'll find your blue box." She sighed and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, rubbing her eyes wearily. She had been up all night studying again, working as hard as she could to get into medical school. Fortunately for me she was also a whiz with people and computers, and combining those two talents meant she could find out just about anything from anyone in the city. That included the location of the blue box.

"Thank you so much. I'll be out looking for it, text me when you find it?"

"Yes, yes fine. Alright. Go on then." Tully laughed and shook her head, sighing exasperatedly and returning to her laptop screen.

"I love you!" I grinned at her, turning to go. She called for me to wait, the smile dropping from her face and her tone deadly serious.

"Addison. If you find the box...just be careful."

"Am I ever not?"

" Perpetually miserable with no sense of self-preservation, sound familiar?"

"What's perpetual mean?"

"Just go. Don't get stabbed or anything, I'm not picking you up from the emergency room _again_."

I strolled through the streets, trying to look casual while still keeping my eyes peeled for any sign, but it was hard to look casual when I felt so full of purpose. I started where we'd been the night before, watching carefully. There was a burst of noise from my shirt pocket and I pulled out the phone, grinning as I read the message. Not really much of a message - nothing more than a street name, signed off with a kiss. "Tallulah Costello, you are a saint."

I started off in a brisk walk before breaking into a jog. I wasn't too far and I could feel it again, that feeling of almost being there, almost knowing the answer. The noise ran through my head, almost comforting now. Something I'd come to rely on. I started to run. I was close, so close, and then -

Something knocked into my body and sent me flying. Or, more accurately, someone. We got up together, stumbling and confused. I stood straight, glaring, touching the cut on my forehead. It seemed to have reopened. "Watch where you're going!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't see you-" He froze, looking me up and down. "I'm...sorry. I have to go."

He took off in the opposite direction, jacket flapping behind him. I stared after him, recognising the voice but unable to place it. I kneeled and grabbed something off the ground - a silver device roughly the size of a water bottle. "Hey!" I called after the retreating figure. "You dropped your thingy!"

Either he didn't hear me or chose to ignore my voice, because he kept running. I pocketed the silver thing and started to walk away, not realising I was going in the wrong direction until I heard it again. The noise, clear as day, somewhere nearby. Somewhere behind me. But by the time I'd sprinted back to the right street, the noise was gone.

And that's when I realised why I recognised his voice.


	5. The Screwdriver's Gone

The Doctor bounced around the TARDIS, clapping his hands together with glee. His current companion - a rather astute and bright young man named Ezekiel - watched him with a vague expression of toleration and suffering. Of course, by now he was used to the Doctor's antics, but there was a time and a place for dancing like a maniac, and this was not it. He quirked an eyebrow as the Doctor pounced on the TARDIS controls and starting to punch in a couple of digits.

"So everything's good here?" He asked, leaning against the console. The Doctor swatted him away and waved for him to grab onto one of the nearby rails, for once without a stream of unintelligible babble to accompany the movement. Of course, to him it wasn't so much unintelligible as it was unnecessary, but the Doctor liked to rant and rave about things as they were being done, so he put up with it. Quietly. Kindly, if he'd say so himself. "Doctor, I said-" Then he took a proper look at the Doctor and promptly shut up. "Doctor, is everything okay? You look...rattled."

There was silence for a few moments, until the Doctor glanced at him. "Yes, yes, fine. Just bumped into an old friend, is all." He chuckled at the literalness of that statement. "Well, maybe bumped isn't quite the right word, more like...knocked over." He ignored the boy's blank stare and focused more on pressing buttons. "Anyway, Zeke, where would you like to go now?"

"Where's the screwdriver?"

"What?"

"The screwdriver, Doctor, the sonic screwdriver. You keep it in that pocket there," He pointed, "And it appears to be missing. There's nothing in that pocket. So I'm asking, where is the screwdriver?"

The Doctor spun around, looking at his jacket and running his hands over his pockets. He checked everything both inside and outside the jacket, he checked his trouser pockets, he even felt around his tie to see if it could have possibly...somehow...gotten stuck up there. As Zeke had said, it wasn't on his person. "Very keen eye there, Ezekiel, very keen eye indeed. Where's my screwdriver?"

Zeke sighed and closed his eyes, starting to lose his patience. For the cleverest man in the universe, some days it seemed like the Doctor was a particularly difficult child. He took a second to inhale deeply and take a calming breath, something he'd gotten used to doing in his travels with the Time Lord. "You said you bumped into someone, could you have dropped it then?"

"Ah! Yes! Oh. No...no no no no no no. Oh dear. Oh." The Doctor froze, shaking his head and giving a blank stare of his own to the screen in front of him. Actually, he wasn't staring at the screen so much as staring through it, which was unnerving to say the least. "If I go back any longer...this isn't good."

He became positively frantic, pacing up and down and tapping his fingers together in useless motions. Zeke sensed he was doing it just for something to do and flinched as the keyed-up doctor knocked several books from where they'd been resting near the console with a scream of - rage? Was it rage? No, he didn't think so. More like he was furious with himself. "Doctor, it's okay. I'm sure it'll be fine. We'll just stop back off in Bristol, find whoever it was, and I'll go and get it."

"I know exactly who it was." The Doctor's gaze returned to that seeing-through-things state. "It was...a former friend of mine. Addison Morgan. I can drop you off in front of her house. But you must be in and out, you cannot under any circumstances linger or try to strike up conversation. Just find the screwdriver and get out. Don't tell her what it is, don't use it in front of her, and most important of all do not mention who I am."

"Yes, Doctor. I understand." Zeke waited while the Doctor returned to the console and held on tight as the TARDIS lurched. "Doctor? Who is she? You said a former friend."

"She's just an old friend I had to leave behind." His voice was soft, strained, and could barely be heard. "It's in the past."

"But you said time was a non-linear progression of-"

"Ezekiel!" The Doctor snapped, standing straight. "I am aware of how time functions but now is not the time for you to be smart about it. Go and get the screwdriver so I can - oh, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to shout."

Zeke had recoiled, standing as far back from the Doctor as he could while still staying in the console room. His eyes turned wary, his hands clenched into tight fists. He wasn't afraid, exactly, but he didn't like seeing the Doctor snap and lose it like that. Whatever or whoever Addison Morgan was, it was not any concern of his. "I'll go and get it."

As he opened the door, he heard a barely perceptible _thankyou_ from behind him. Zeke silently cursed himself for leaving the Doctor earlier; things like this were what happened when he was left on his own for too long.


End file.
